HIGH PULSED CURRENTS FROM PHOTO-FIELD EMITTERS

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HIGH PULSED CURRENTS FROM PHOTO-FIELD

EMITTERS

H. Bergeret, M. Boussoukaya, R. Chehab, B. Leblond, J. Le Duff

To cite this version:

JOURNAL DE PHYSIQUE

Colloque C6, supplement

au

nell, Tome 49, novembre 1988

HIGH PULSED CURRENTS FROM PHOTO-FIELD EMITTERS

H.

BERGERET,

M.

BOUSSOUKAYA, R. CHEHAB, B. LEBLOND and J. LE DUFF

UniversittS Paris-Sud, I n s t i t u t National de Physique Nucl6afre

et

de

Physique des P a r t i c u l e s , Laboratoire de 1'AccBltSrateur LintSaire,

Centre dlOrsay,

F-91405

Orsay Cedex, France

Abstract : Different microemitters - single or arrays

-

with various geometries and kinds of material have been irradiated with pulsed laser beams. These emitters working in photo-field emission regime delivered very high intensity electron bunches. Peak intensities as high as some tens of Amps with less than one ns duration have been obtained with

U.V.

light. New type of microemitters developed in collaboration with BNL have been tested since last year showing the possibility of obtaining charges above 20 nC with low energy laser pulses, (ei = 100pJ). The main parameters affecting the choice of these emitters as quantum yield, photocurrent density, electron pulse length, repetition rate and vacuum system level are here discussed. Good performances obtained with these emitters as well as the absence of cesiation make these microemitters interesting candidates for the new generation of linac injectors as well as for multimegawatt

RF

sources. At LAL, Orsay efforts have been made since three years t o develop such electron sources.

I. INTRODUCTION

Photo-field-emission from m a y s of micro emitters has been used in the last years under weak photonic illumination, as for infrared pho- tocathodes in astronomical application. [I]

Due to the photoexcitation associated with the tunneling effect, such photocathodes allowed theoretically and practically 'an excellent quan- tum yield, with the unique feature to act without the need of any alcaline deposition on their sur- face.

Research and developement on new linear colliders need electron sources of high brightness whiah could deliver intense bunches of picosecond duration.

Therefore at LAL, ORSAY we started exper- imental studies to obtain such pukes by photo- production driven by a pulsed laser on different photo-field emitters.

Some results using Pd Si and WSi microemit- ters are reported.

For our photofield emission experiments we used different samples made of various materials realized by integrated circuit technique on sili- con masks. All silicon ridge arrays were diffusion bonded to aluminium planchets. An important parameter for a photo-field emitter is the high lo- cal electric field which must be created at the top of them in order to sharpen the surface potential barrier. For that purpose, geometrical design of the array is of particularly importance. Dimen- sions appear from photographies : Each row of emitters has a thickness of about 0.2 t o 0.5 pm, a height of 5 pm and distant from its neighbour of 10 pm.

First, we tested : a ridge pattern which has been sputter coated with 750

A

of tungsten. Then. another ridge pattern which is coated with 500

A

of P d has been tested. For PdSi pattern entire assembly was annealed at 400

"

C for 10 mn in argon to form PdSi layer over ridges. Other samples will be soon tested and especially those of highly n or p doped silicon.

C6-168 JOURNAL DE PHYSIQUE

Figures (la, lb) show an example of the used microscopical emitters which we have been test- ing since July 1987. The corresponding photogra- phies were obtained with an electronic scanning microscope

(ESM).

These photocathodes were provided by the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

121

111. LASER DESCRIPTION In our tests we used a Nd :

YAG

laser, which consists of a mode locked

Q

switched oscillator by saturable absorbent at 10 Hz. It produces a train of picosecond (ps) elementary pulses in different light wavelengths ( l w , 2w,3w) with a chosen fre- quency modulation from 125 MH5 to 3000 MHz using a multiplexer. A single optical amplifier al- lows the production in visible light with an energy of 8

mJ

in the train and 3 mJ in U.V. light in to- tal. The laser oscillator produces a train of 30 ps FWHM pulses. Using a Pockel's cell selector one can choose a simple pulse from the produced burst to illuminate the sample. Figures 2a and 2b show examples of this single pulse, measured with an ARP streak camera in U.V. and green

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS The tests were using two different vacuum cells. Produced photocurrents are measured on the cathode holder in the smallest cell (cell n O l fig.3). This output allows a better'knowledge of the emitted photocurrent pulses. In the second cell (cell n02), produced photoelectrons are col- lected either on a polarized anode or on a Faraday cup(fig.4).

liehts.

FIG. 3

Transmission light measurements showed that about 10

%

of the incident photons are re- flected when entering the sapphire window of each cell. Light incidence angle on the photocathode was 8 21 78' in cell no 1 and variable (roughly)

from 0' to 90' in cell no 2. Tested microcath- odes were electrically characterized in field emis- sion regime by Fowler Nordheim plot before their irradiation by the laser beam. Field emission threshold occurred in each cell at different poten- tial values depending of the cathode anode dis- tance. Typically it was for the WSi array of V=

28 kV for a cathode anode' distance of 21 5 mm

JOURNAL

DE

PHYSIQUE

PIG.

High local electric field around the upper re- gion of the microemitters

(El

-V l v / A ) govern the sharpening of the potential barrier. This re- sult is obtained using a DC high voltage between the array and the anode.

Average photocurrents were measured just below field emission threshold on an ammeter ; then pulsed photocurrents were observed using two different oscilloscopes with bandwidths of 1 and 7 GHz respectively.

IV.1. OBTAINED

RESULTS

WITH MODERATE HIGH VOLTAGE (cell nOl)

Using WSi sample a t X = 353 nm with a photonic energy ei

=

1 0 m 4 J

f

20%, we observed in cell no 1 the variation of the average photo- emission with the D.C. potential (Fig. 5). All potential values were below the observable field emission threshold.

0 10 2D 33 40

H

V

(KV)

FIG. 5

- Average emission variation with

D.C. p o t e n t i a l ( c e l l no 1)

On this figure, we may notice an important enhancement of the photoemission just below the field emission threshold (FET).

In figure

6;

variation of the emitted photocur- rent vs photqnic intensity is represented for a given HV. The important increase of the current may be c o ~ e c t e d principally to thermic beha- viour. Pulse observation on 1 GHz scope showed

a thermic tail.

3

0

0 1 c Q U X ) 3 0 0 4 0 0 M O

LASER INTENSlTY (micro Joules)

-

Photocurrent v a r i a t i o n with photonic i n t e n s i t y ( c e l l no 1)

FIG.

IV.2.0BTAINED RESULTS WITH MODERATE V. CONCLUSION

HIGH

VOLTAGE

(cell

no

2') These photocathodes presented : high pho- toemissivity, good reproducibility of the photo- Tests were going on with this photocathode currents with moderate laser energies (less than in cell n02. FET were obtained for different ca-

J),

good mechanical stability and good be- thode-anode distances. Breakdowns often occur- haviour to a laser light exposure. Such photo- red for potential values above 85 kV and weak cathodes could be interesting candidates for laser

photocurrents. driven

RF

guns. Some measurements on these

photocathodes will be done in LAL : more precise Photocurrent behaviour with incident light determination of the photocurrent pulse duration power and high voltage has been observed. On and ernittance measurements.

JOURNAL

DE

PHYSIQUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Dr. J. Fisher, Dr. T.S. Rao, Dr.

J.

Warren, Dr. V. Radeka from Brookhaven Na- tional Laboratory for their collaboration.

1 D.K. SCHRODER and a1 "The Semicon- ductor Field-Emission Photocathode"1EEE Trans on Elect. Devices Vol ED 21 n012 December

1974

p 785.

2 W.B. GARWIN et al 'LAn experimental Program t o built a Multimegawatt Lasertron for Super Linear ColIidersl'. SLAC, VANCOUVER PAC (MAY 1985).

3 M. BOUSSOUKAYA et al "Photoemission